


Eleven

by MittenWraith



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel (Supernatural) Talks About Feelings, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Feelings Realization, M/M, it's all just a bunch of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 00:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/MittenWraith
Summary: It's been eleven years since a hunter an an angel walked into a barn... it's time they gained some perspective on how incredible the last eleven years have been.





	Eleven

The case had proven to be sad more than scary or dangerous. An abandoned house. The ghost of a woman who only wanted to be reunited with her husband, stuck mourning his loss in the house they’d shared for decades, unable to move on after she died. It would’ve been a simple matter of salting and burning her bones, if it had been Gloria Radcliffe’s bones trapping her there.

It was Cas that finally got through to her, assuring her that her husband was waiting for her in Heaven if she could only let go of the home they’d made on Earth. She could go and find peace and happiness forever, but it had to be her choice.

Or that’s what finally convinced her to let go, at least.

Dean knew Cas had told her the beautiful lie everyone wants to believe about Heaven. Sure, you’re there with your loved ones, eternally living out your happiest memories, but how much of it is really _ real_. Dean had been there. He knew. It kinda tarnished the illusion just a bit.

It had weighed on him the entire ride back to the bunker, the strange melancholy he couldn’t shake. The spirit’s grief was all tangled up with his own, spiraled out through the events of his entire life. Maybe it was just the cooler autumnal turn the weather had taken over the last day or two, or the fact the hunt ended with a good cry instead of a good fight, but Dean felt itchy and restless, like there was something important he’d forgotten, or maybe hadn’t even figured out yet.

He sat in the kitchen long after Sam turned in, picking at the leftover pizza they’d brought home and wishing they’d thought to pick up something sweet. It was an ice cream kind of night, he thought as he slowly sipped a beer and stared at the mostly empty pizza box.

“Dean, you’re still up?” Cas asked, finding him still sulking at the table a little while later.

Dean snorted but didn’t look up from his half-drunk beer. “How could you tell?”

He didn’t have to look up to know the sour face Cas made at that comment, or to know that Cas would come over to the table, close up the pizza box and take it to the fridge. Cas had been getting a lot better at knowing exactly what to do in situations like these. Not just how to deal with a melancholy Dean, but how to be patient enough to wait out Dean’s bullshit long enough to wheedle the truth out of him. If his patience was often displayed through the performance of various household chores, Dean wasn’t about to complain. Hell, he enjoyed this more laid back Cas. If he was being honest with himself, he was becoming a lot more laid back, too.

“Something about today’s hunt has been bothering you all night,” Cas said, sitting down across from Dean. He didn’t need to say anything else. He just sat back and waited Dean out. His tactic paid off eventually.

“Imagine being married to someone for 67 years,” Dean said, picking at the label of his beer bottle, the contents long since gone warm and flat. He finally looked up at Cas. “67 years, and then not having any idea how to let go of that life, even after the person you loved that much is gone.”

Cas nodded slowly, letting Dean work out why this was bothering him so much.

“You told her he was waiting for her in Heaven.”

Cas shrugged. “Gloria will bring his memory with her, whether or not they’re true soul mates who will share a heaven. She’ll be happy there. Much happier than she’d been stuck in her empty house alone, mourning the life she’d lost. Her life with her husband was a gift she can treasure for an eternity now.”

Dean nodded, shifted uneasily in his seat and went back to picking at his beer label. “They had a long damn time to make memories together. Some people don’t get near that long.”

Cas frowned and ventured a guess. “Are you referring to your parents? Because I assure you that your mother was joyously happy in her Heaven.”

“They only had ten years,” Dean said. “Ten years from when a cupid forced them to get together to when she burned.”

“This is why we make the most of the time we’re given, to hope the good outweighs the bad, and find happiness where we can,” Cas said softly. “Ten years can change everything.”

Dean let out a tired laugh and rubbed his eyes. “Might as well be a million years in my case. I ain’t never gonna have that kind of relationship.”

Cas sat quietly for a moment, frowning at him. “What do you mean?”

Dean turned serious, pushing his beer bottle aside and leaning his arms on the table. “The longest relationship I ever had lasted less than a year, and it ain’t exactly a barrel of happy memories. What do I even have in my life besides Sam, who’s practically married to Rowena now, and you?”

Cas shook his head, his eyebrows pinching together as he squinted at Dean. “Me?”

“Yeah, dumbass. You’re about the closest thing I’ve got to settling down with someone. Except, you know, we’re… not… that...”

“We’re not what?”

“You know,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows and waving a hand between them. “A thing?”

Cas nodded slowly, this time Dean letting him get there on his own. “But you want to have a thing… with someone?”

Dean shrugged one shoulder. “Never really thought I could, you know? Spent most of the last decade playing cosmic catch up. It didn’t really leave a lot of time for a social life.” Dean snorted at the recollection and then grinned at Cas. “Even you judged me once for never going to parties.”

“Well, it’s tr--”

“When’s the last time _ you _ went to a party, huh?” Dean said, cutting him off. “And drinking a liquor store during the apocalypse doesn’t count as a party.”

“There was that time at that nursing home,” Cas replied. “There was cake.”

Dean blinked at him for a second, trying to remember. “You mean the cake that exploded? What did you call it, a pastry mishap?”

“It was still a party,” Cas replied defensively.

“Weren’t you invisible at the time?” Dean asked, a grin spreading across his face. “It’s not like you were on the guest list.”

“I was still there,” Cas replied. “You only arrived after the cake exploded.”

“Yeah, I missed the festivities.”

“Fine, so neither of us has had a lot of time for celebration.”

Cas turned and looked at the clock on the wall. It had finally passed midnight. He got up and went to the fridge, and pulled out a small white box pastry he’d hidden behind the beer. He slowly slid it on the table in front of Dean and then took his seat again. Dean looked up at him, confused.

“Open it,” Cas said, gesturing at the box.

“This your idea of a party?” Dean said, lifting the lid. His smirk faded as he got a look inside. He stared down at the small cake, decorated with rainbow confetti sprinkles and the number 11 written in green frosting.

“I was saving it for later, but it’s officially the 18th now. Happy anniversary, Dean.”

Dean sat there, dumbstruck, looking between Cas and the cake, finally processing exactly what day it was.

“September 18,” he finally said. “Shit, has it really been eleven years?”

Cas nodded. “Eleven years since I gripped you tight and raised you from perdition, yes.”

“That’s longer than my parents had,” Dean said quietly, rethinking what he actually had with Cas in an entirely new light as he came to terms with what had really been upsetting him all day. “Guess we met because of angels, too. Only we both had a choice in the rest of it.”

Cas smiled at him. “And we’re still choosing every day.”

Dean stared at him, wondering how he hadn’t seen it sooner, appalled with himself for assuming this shit didn’t mean the same to Cas as it did to him. It wasn’t as if he’d never entertained the notion before, but it had always seemed so laughably impossible. Cas struggled to understand some of the most basic human concepts, and _ this _ was the one he got on the first try? Then again, he’d been trying to get this one since day one, hadn’t he? _ Good things do happen, Dean. _

Cas had said everything could change in ten years, and he hadn’t been kidding. Eleven years ago, he was fresh outta hell and was still coming to grips with the fact that angels were real, and now he was sitting in his own kitchen just chilling with one. The same kitchen where God had once cooked them up pancakes while Cas had still been possessed by Lucifer. The same kitchen where he’d sat with his resurrected father and cooked dinner with his resurrected mother. The same kitchen where he’d told Sam he couldn’t imagine living any other life than the one that had led him right here, surrounded by the people he loved and loved him in turn. And it had all happened in little more than a decade.

This was still uncharted territory, though, so Dean took it slow. He took a deep breath and let Cas’s calm patience with him guide his next words.

“You know, busting into that barn with the light show and everything, you put on a pretty decent party.”

Cas snorted. “You contributed to the decor.”

“Coulda used a buffet, maybe an open bar,” Dean replied. “Still, it was better than Hell.”

“Most things are,” Cas said, fighting a grin.

Dean got up and returned a moment later with two forks, handing one to Cas. He pushed the cake box to the middle of the table between them.

“Dig in, Cas. We’re celebrating. We got eleven years. You think we’ll get 56 more?”

They each took a bite of the cake. Underneath the white icing and the rainbow of sprinkles, it was filled with rich chocolate. Dean went in for another bite around a hum of satisfaction while Cas watched on with a smile.

“I think it matters far more what we make of our time than how much of it we’re given.”

Cas carefully took a bite of the cake, stared at it for a moment, and then ate it. Dean smiled at him and nodded to the cake, shoving another bite into his own mouth.

“Good, ain’t it?”

Cas swallowed and licked the frosting off his teeth, nodding as he went back for more. “It is.”

They let the conversation hang there, unfinished, while they slowly devoured the cake. Eventually Dean broke their silence again.

“So, is this a good use of our time, you think?”

Cas shrugged. “Any time spent in your company is well spent. I said a lot can change in a decade, and I meant it. Knowing you has been the best part of my life.”

Dean blinked at that, because Cas had said that before, too. He’d pushed it aside at the time, because Cas had been dying, and then a demon tried to finish them all off. When they were all safe and whole and healthy again, they’d had even more worries to deal with, and somehow Dean had never gotten around to asking Cas exactly what he’d meant by that. That hadn’t stopped him from thinking about it, maybe obsessing over it. An angel, billions of years old, and the decade he’d spent with Dean had somehow topped his highlight reel. It was a terrifying and ridiculous thought, and yet now that Cas wasn’t dying and they were actually having a conversation about the past and the future, he still calmly insisted it was true. And if it were true, Dean finally understood what had upset him so much about the ghost of Gloria Radcliffe.

“I got her grief,” Dean said, not taking his eyes from Cas. “Gloria, the ghost. That kinda longing, the loss, I know exactly how that feels.”

Cas raised an eyebrow and waited for Dean to finish. Dean took a deep breath and let it out.

“I lost you a couple of times already. I know how losing everything feels, but what I don’t have is all the shit that’s supposed to lead to that at the end of the road.”

“And you’d like the long and happy life to go with it?” Cas asked, leaning forward across the table.

Dean just nodded, as Cas smiled.

“I think I’d like that, too.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Dean asked, feeling slightly giddy at the profoundly underwhelming sense of relief at a decade-overdue conversation. “I feel like we’re already doing this backward.”

“Where would you like to go, Dean? I’ll follow wherever you lead.”

Dean considered that for a moment and then leaned over the table, his face only inches from Cas’s. “How about we start with this.”

He leaned in ever so slowly, giving Cas all the time in the world to back away. Instead, Cas surged forward until their lips met. Dean leaned back, blinking at Cas like he couldn’t believe they’d actually done it, but from the contented smile on Cas’s face he knew it had to be real. He’d never seen Cas look so satisfied with himself. This definitely couldn’t be a dream. If it was real, then Dean needed to continue this experiment immediately. They had a hell of a lot of time to make up for. And they had all the time in the world to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I couldn't let this date pass without writing something, being who I am as a person. :')
> 
> If you haven't had enough Deancasversary feelings, I'd like to recommend the following posts, as well:
> 
> [Ten Years Gone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003634), last year's feelings fic for the 10th deancasversary
> 
> [His True Love Was The C](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15910824), last year's hilarious fic for the 10th deancasversary (what, it was A Big Deal™, don't judge me)
> 
> And of course the original nonsense: [ The Three Day Deancasversary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857655), or the tumblr-rebloggable (and possibly updated) version [here](https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/129360374055/the-three-day-deancasversary)
> 
> And a friendly reminder you can always come wail in my general direction on the tumbls. I'm [mittensmorgul](https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com)


End file.
